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In reply to the discussion: Israeli Car Attack: NSG Not Allowed To Gather Data From Spot [View all]KansDem
(28,498 posts)10. Here's a couple more...
PALAST:
I showed lawyer Michael Wildes our FBI documents. One of the Khobar Towers bombers was represented by Wildes, who thought he had useful intelligence for the US. He also represents a Saudi diplomat who defected to the USA with 14,000 documents which Wildes claims implicates Saudi citizens in financing terrorism and more. Wildes met with FBI men who told him they were not permitted to read all the documents. Nevertheless, he tried to give them to the agents.
WILDES:
"Take these with you. We're not going to charge for the copies. Keep them. Do something with them. Get some bad guys with them." They refused.
PALAST:
In the hall of mirrors that is the US intelligence community, Wildes, a former US federal attorney, said the FBI field agents wanted the documents, but they were told to "see no evil."
WILDES:
You see a difference between the rank-and-file counter-intelligence agents, who are regarded by some as the motor pool of the FBI, who drive following diplomats, and the people who are getting the shots called at the highest level of our government, who have a different agenda - it's unconscionable.
PALAST:
State wanted to keep the pro-American Saudi royal family in control of the world's biggest oil spigot, even at the price of turning a blind eye to any terrorist connection so long as America was safe. In recent years, CIA operatives had other reasons for not exposing Saudi-backed suspects.
TRENTO:
If you recruited somebody who is a member of a terrorist organisation, who happens to make his way here to the US, and even though you're not in touch with that person anymore but you have used him in the past, it would be unseemly if he were arrested by the FBI and word got back that he'd once been on the payroll of the CIA. What we're talking about is blow-back. What we're talking about is embarrassing, career-destroying blow-back for intelligence officials.
PALAST:
Does the Bush family also have to worry about political blow-back? The younger Bush made his first million 20 years ago with an oil company partly funded by Salem Bin Laden's chief US representative. Young George also received fees as director of a subsidiary of Carlyle Corporation, a little known private company which has, in just a few years of its founding, become one of Americas biggest defence contractors. His father, Bush Senior, is also a paid advisor. And what became embarrassing was the revelation that the Bin Ladens held a stake in Carlyle, sold just after September 11.
ELSNER:
You have a key relationship between the Saudis and the former President of the US who happens to be the father of the current President of the US. And you have all sorts of questions about where does policy begin and where does good business and good profits for the company, Carlyle, end?
PALAST:
I received a phone call from a high-placed member of a US intelligence agency. He tells me that while there's always been constraints on investigating Saudis, under George Bush it's gotten much worse. After the elections, the agencies were told to "back off" investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that angered agents. I'm told that since September 11th the policy has been reversed. FBI headquarters told us they could not comment on our findings. A spokesman said: "There are lots of things that only the intelligence community knows and that no-one else ought to know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm
JAY: Graham has himself thought they should have been released. Why were they not?
SUMMERS: The initial version was that they had been redacted--suppressed, in short--at the insistence of the CIA, which indeed was the agency that processed the report for publication, as is reasonable. But Senator Graham made personal enquiries to find out why that particular 27 pages had been redacted. It was important. It was the end of their report, the conclusion, effectively their findings at the end of their investigation. And he said the report came back from the CIA that the 27 pages had been redacted at the insistence of President Bush himself.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7307
WHO APPROVED THESE FLIGHTS AND WHY
We really do not know why it was so necessary for the White House to allow the quick exodus of these Saudi and bin Ladens out of the country, and "the White House still refuses to document fully how the flights were arranged," according to a June 20, 2004, article by Phil Shenon in the New York Times .
We do know who asked for help in getting Saudis out of the country - the Saudi government. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12 The film also includes a television interview with Saudi Prince Bandar, confirming this as well.
Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has testified that he approved these flights, stating that "it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/fahrenheit-911-facts/what-fahrenheit-911-says-about-the-saudi-flights-out-of-the-country-after-september-11
Althouth Clarke said he approved the flights (which leads one to wonder who was in charge), it appears it was the Sauds who wanted the investigations supressed. Bush was merely doing the bidding of the Saudi Royal Family...
I showed lawyer Michael Wildes our FBI documents. One of the Khobar Towers bombers was represented by Wildes, who thought he had useful intelligence for the US. He also represents a Saudi diplomat who defected to the USA with 14,000 documents which Wildes claims implicates Saudi citizens in financing terrorism and more. Wildes met with FBI men who told him they were not permitted to read all the documents. Nevertheless, he tried to give them to the agents.
WILDES:
"Take these with you. We're not going to charge for the copies. Keep them. Do something with them. Get some bad guys with them." They refused.
PALAST:
In the hall of mirrors that is the US intelligence community, Wildes, a former US federal attorney, said the FBI field agents wanted the documents, but they were told to "see no evil."
WILDES:
You see a difference between the rank-and-file counter-intelligence agents, who are regarded by some as the motor pool of the FBI, who drive following diplomats, and the people who are getting the shots called at the highest level of our government, who have a different agenda - it's unconscionable.
PALAST:
State wanted to keep the pro-American Saudi royal family in control of the world's biggest oil spigot, even at the price of turning a blind eye to any terrorist connection so long as America was safe. In recent years, CIA operatives had other reasons for not exposing Saudi-backed suspects.
TRENTO:
If you recruited somebody who is a member of a terrorist organisation, who happens to make his way here to the US, and even though you're not in touch with that person anymore but you have used him in the past, it would be unseemly if he were arrested by the FBI and word got back that he'd once been on the payroll of the CIA. What we're talking about is blow-back. What we're talking about is embarrassing, career-destroying blow-back for intelligence officials.
PALAST:
Does the Bush family also have to worry about political blow-back? The younger Bush made his first million 20 years ago with an oil company partly funded by Salem Bin Laden's chief US representative. Young George also received fees as director of a subsidiary of Carlyle Corporation, a little known private company which has, in just a few years of its founding, become one of Americas biggest defence contractors. His father, Bush Senior, is also a paid advisor. And what became embarrassing was the revelation that the Bin Ladens held a stake in Carlyle, sold just after September 11.
ELSNER:
You have a key relationship between the Saudis and the former President of the US who happens to be the father of the current President of the US. And you have all sorts of questions about where does policy begin and where does good business and good profits for the company, Carlyle, end?
PALAST:
I received a phone call from a high-placed member of a US intelligence agency. He tells me that while there's always been constraints on investigating Saudis, under George Bush it's gotten much worse. After the elections, the agencies were told to "back off" investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that angered agents. I'm told that since September 11th the policy has been reversed. FBI headquarters told us they could not comment on our findings. A spokesman said: "There are lots of things that only the intelligence community knows and that no-one else ought to know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm
JAY: Graham has himself thought they should have been released. Why were they not?
SUMMERS: The initial version was that they had been redacted--suppressed, in short--at the insistence of the CIA, which indeed was the agency that processed the report for publication, as is reasonable. But Senator Graham made personal enquiries to find out why that particular 27 pages had been redacted. It was important. It was the end of their report, the conclusion, effectively their findings at the end of their investigation. And he said the report came back from the CIA that the 27 pages had been redacted at the insistence of President Bush himself.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7307
WHO APPROVED THESE FLIGHTS AND WHY
We really do not know why it was so necessary for the White House to allow the quick exodus of these Saudi and bin Ladens out of the country, and "the White House still refuses to document fully how the flights were arranged," according to a June 20, 2004, article by Phil Shenon in the New York Times .
We do know who asked for help in getting Saudis out of the country - the Saudi government. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12 The film also includes a television interview with Saudi Prince Bandar, confirming this as well.
Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has testified that he approved these flights, stating that "it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/fahrenheit-911-facts/what-fahrenheit-911-says-about-the-saudi-flights-out-of-the-country-after-september-11
Althouth Clarke said he approved the flights (which leads one to wonder who was in charge), it appears it was the Sauds who wanted the investigations supressed. Bush was merely doing the bidding of the Saudi Royal Family...
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